Riverbend Reunion(22)

When she’d tossed and turned for an hour, she finally got out of bed, poured herself a tall glass of milk, and padded barefoot to the screened-in porch just off the kitchen. She eased down in an old rocking chair that had been her mother’s favorite, set her milk on the table beside her, and gazed out at the stars. Knowing that Risa and the twins were in the house with her made her feel less lonely and upset with the idea of her birth.

Thinking of the beach brought back memories of the times when she was a little girl, and her parents would take her out to Laguna Beach for a week. She remembered one time that her sister, Frannie, had joined them for a couple of days. Frannie had hugged her extra tight when she had left and had even wiped away a few tears.

“Were you trying to tell me that you were my biological mother? Was it difficult for you to keep the secret?” she whispered.

“Is someone with you, or are you talking to me?” Risa asked from the other end of the porch.

Haley jerked around, startled to hear someone else in the room. “I’m alone. I was thinking about my parents. Remembering a time when Frannie hugged me and cried when she had to leave. We were vacationing on the beach, and she had come down for a couple of days. Why didn’t Mama tell me when I was grown, or at least before Frannie died so we could have the option of a relationship?”

“Most likely she didn’t know how to after all the years had passed,” Risa said from the other end of the porch. “I hope I didn’t wake you when I came downstairs. That bottom step on the staircase squeaks.”

“Always has,” Haley said. “You couldn’t sleep, either?”

Risa moved over closer to Haley and sat down on a settee. “I’m trying to process everything. The girls have been through so much lately. Do you think I should take them to a therapist?”

“They seem to be adjusting very well to me, but I think you could use some help,” Haley said. “I’m a counselor, not a therapist, but I’ve got broad shoulders and listening ears if you want to talk. What happened between you and Paul? I thought y’all were the model couple, and I used to wish that I’d find a husband like him.”

“I can bluff with the best of them.” Risa’s chuckle was brittle. “Mama always told me that I had to sleep in the bed I made, and if I married that boy and went to Kentucky with him, then I was on my own. The Paul I married was not the one I left, or maybe I should say who left me. I married a romantic, fun-loving man who picked a bouquet of wildflowers and tied them with a piece of twine so I would have a bouquet when we eloped. He turned into a man I hardly knew after the first three months of marriage. His mother had a double-wide trailer set up on the property for each of her six sons, and they all worked for the family business. She was the queen, and everyone bowed to her wishes.”

Haley stood up and went to a small cabinet on the back wall, took out a bottle of Gentleman Jack, and poured two fingers in a red plastic cup. She handed it to Risa and then sat back down and held up her glass of milk. “To accepting change, no matter what.”

Risa sipped the whiskey and nodded. “Thanks for this. I didn’t know your mama ever drank. Aren’t you going to have one with me?”

“Nope, my stomach is a little touchy. Nerves and stress, I’m sure, but I don’t think I’d better have whiskey,” Haley answered.

“Okay then, to accepting change, but we don’t have a choice in the matter, for the most part,” Risa said. “It can blow in like a tornado, or kind of slow—strolling along humming, in the case with Paul. But it will come, and it will affect a life no matter what.”

“When we look back, we can see that we didn’t have to do the things we did, but maybe at the time, it seemed to be the right choice, but we did have one. I didn’t have to take that job in Alabama. I could have stayed in Texas, but at the time I wanted to be totally on my own, and as long as I was in Texas, I would depend too much on my parents. Now I wish I would have stayed here so I could have spent time with Mama.”

“How are you really holding up after finding that letter?” Risa asked. “Evidently you’re having as much trouble sleeping as I am.”

“I’ve got questions that will probably never get answered.” Haley took a sip of her milk. “Was I born because my mama and her boyfriend were careless, or was I the product of date rape or something like that? If that was the case, why didn’t she just put me up for adoption?”

“Or terminate the pregnancy?” Risa said.

“Mama would have never let my sister do that.” The icy-cold milk settled her nervous stomach—a condition that she’d been battling since her mother passed away so suddenly—but it did nothing to answer all the questions in her mind. “She wasn’t super religious, but she couldn’t have handled a termination. Maybe I’ll find something in this house that helps me get through all this. Right now, I want you to know that having you and the girls here is a big plus. I feel like I’ve got family around me.”

“Thank you. I sure don’t want to be a burden, and if—” Risa started.

Haley held up a palm and shook her head. “Don’t even think like that. We are more than friends, and you are helping me as much as I’m helping you. We’re talking through problems, so basically, we’re in a group therapy session. Speaking of that, why did the queen bee in Kentucky kick you out, anyway? If I’m prying, you don’t have to answer that.”